ArtistSwedish
Theresia Sandström
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Lisen Theresia Sandström, born Dahl on 21 June 1893 in Ringarum, Östergötland, spent nearly nine decades making oil paintings that range from storm-tossed sailing ships to quiet farm scenes in the Swedish countryside. Her father was the master builder Adolf Dahl, and she grew up in a region where flat agricultural land meets the forested ridges of Kolmården — a landscape that would recur throughout her work.
Her formal training took her across northern Europe during a formative period: studies in the Netherlands in 1916 and further training in Germany in 1919. These years exposed her to continental traditions of landscape and marine painting at a moment when plein-air practice still dominated the academies. She signed most of her paintings 'T Dahl', retaining her maiden name as her artistic identity even after marrying the art dealer Thure Hjalmar Alexander Sandström.
The marriage to an art dealer placed her close to the commercial art world, which led to a complicated footnote in her legacy. A body of marine paintings attributed to the signature 'Th. Sandström' are now understood to have been produced pseudonymously: they were actually the work of Johan Ossian Andersson, signed under her name by her husband. This attribution tangle has meant that separating her genuine output — documented landscapes from Skåne and Kolmården, and oil studies of fishing boats — from works sold under her name requires careful attention to provenance.
Her verified exhibition record shows participation in group shows in Stockholm between 1944 and 1947, as well as collective exhibitions organized by regional art societies. She continued to work into old age, living through most of the twentieth century before her death in 1981.
On the Swedish auction market, Sandström's oils appear regularly at houses across the country. The 12 items tracked on Auctionist span houses including Metropol, Stockholms Auktionsverk Helsingborg, Helsingborgs Auktionskammare, and Göteborgs Auktionsverk. Documented sales include a marine oil ('Båtar till havs') that fetched 650 SEK, a 1928-dated oil that sold for 450 EUR, and a pair of fishing-boat paintings in the 300–500 SEK range. The consistent subject matter across auction lots — sailing vessels, coastal scenes, and rural Skåne farms — confirms the character of her genuine body of work.